"furled" poems
Females and males are one in the world,
although that is not the belief that has been furled.
We are told that one gender is better than the other,
it seems it's just one stereotype; one after another.
Equality can become realised if only we believe
and take the initiative to take action and achieve.
Why shouldn't men and women be treated the same?
To have equal rights and equal pay, that should really be our aim.
Men, gender inequality is your issue too,
although you may not agree, I'm afraid it is true.
You should have the right to express your emotions and be what you please,
You should not be pulled back by stigma, but instead be who you are at ease.
Instead of fighting, we should be pulling together,
and make this journey a joint endeavor.
We are of equal value if only we open our eyes,
at the heart of change is where we become most wise.
Now or never? If not us then who?
the interest in this movement must come through.
Equality is not a privilege but a human right,
all genders on the spectrum should be able to shine bright.
Jan 8, 2016
Jan 8, 2016 at 4:41 PM UTC
she was leaving
and got the gumption
to see me before she did
so we went to dinner
she sat, crumpled
at the edge of the booth
playing with her silverware
hands sweating
our knees barely touching
underneath the table
they shook like the day we met
they shook like floodgates
when the clouds get upset
her hair was drawn back
into an apology
and she didn't answer
when the waiter asked for drinks
she pans, tilts
looking for the restroom
but doesn't get up
covers her mouth
to hide her furled chin
i cut her a piece of bread
not sparingly
i didn't want to ruin the symbolism
of cutting a gangrenous thing
from ones self
she half wept out "tell me a joke"
i thought to say "look at us."
that's it. that's the joke.
the premise & the punch line
sharing some silence
here in this ominous moment
so thick with goodbye
you could touch it
i said "when they asked what the name was for the wait, i should've said "awkward, party of 2"
but that's not the joke
"knock knock"
she whispered "who's there?"
i sat for a moment and said
"so we've come full circle.. we're even in the same seats, from all those months ago"
her lips quivered
and she hid her mouth
"i just wanted to hear a joke"
she said
i came back with
"if i fell for you in a quiet restaurant & no one was around to hear it, does the laughter of children i drempt we'd have make a sound?"
Sep 6, 2014
Sep 6, 2014 at 7:19 PM UTC
The Red Rain of Kerala wrote this Plague
Un-supported by Evidence and Song
As it wept and bled that once-thirsty Plain
Locals knew their throats will not dry too long
But how could they drink this very strange Guilt
When their Sheets un-furled like the Flags of War
And not until the Google-Heads came in
They realised it was foreign before
Samples were taken in pursuit of Cause
Then page by page those Suspects came to light
Was it Bacteria? Or Lichens-at-Lost
Either way there was some Blood to incite.
When those Findings end, much was to conclude
Which Creation's Purchase falls upon you.
Mar 9, 2013
Mar 9, 2013 at 4:16 PM UTC
In the divet between mountains
Resides a wooden cabin – ostensibly an amalgamation of the scape
Adroitly - I - quondam female warrior flit
Down massive (ancient) hand-laid, hand-cut carved stone steps
Bounding from contingent step onto the dense pad of turned soil
Tacit compliance between gravity and soil holds footprints bound
A compressed deflating crescendo as pace ignites with bounds
Cadences of protuberant wildflowers and grasses erupt from swollen terra
A winsome chromatic menagerie, dispersed in ecstatic fistfuls
A venerably ancient ritual
My nascent clandestine vocation
Personally meted out - a beatification for my provisional sanctuary
Along glacier-fed stream
Lissome fingers shadow inert stalks –plucking dormant beginnings from their desiccated ligaments
I am austere and unadorned save for a festoon of pyrite flecks trailing my semblance
Residual gilding from my ante-meridian swim taken after requisite gathering of wild blackberries, goose berries, and rhubarb along oft-tamped path
The sun, nestling into its requisite apex endorsed my completion
I reclined into the hassock of soil, feeling the elements settle about with an embossment of my form
Imposing verdure arched subtly as compressed soil beckoned hyperbolic flux
As I lay within the basilica of opulent living columns replete with comestible bounty
Lingering dew honed inflections of sacrosanct petrichor in unison with piquant clover
Wild purple clover buds saccharinely tinted and inundated nestled nerves in mine cribriform plate
Birds pitched and galloped through the frond tips and beyond in the lapis expanse
Frequently snatching damselfly’s and assemblages of midges from their ephemeral drift
Auspicious rays transcended stippled diaphanous gravid clouds
Light inundated ether entered humbly into the cathedral oculus
Pyrite speckled terrain beneath, and my bare gilded form above
Cast a refracted aura about my sanctuary
Precipitously the elusive vaporous embankment distended further
Ashen atmospheric correspondence inaugurated liquescent sustenance to my mountain abode
And I -
Lingered beneath the descending gobbets, curls furled in a puddle
Fresh topsoil cupping my corporal topographic contours
Pressing blackberries into my mouth between smiles
Jan 26, 2014
Jan 26, 2014 at 9:13 PM UTC
A dream once was had-- for two to be equal,
For this is the land of the free,
Free for you; free for me.
Often we hide our faces, as if we were the ones shamed.
Instead of standing up with another,
Repelling awful names.
Silence has a power, often more than sound.
Silence tunes your true voice,
Silence shakes the ground.
Silence is the foe, when words need to be said.
Silence is the killer.
Silence marks the dead.
Young students go to school, all shades of different skin.
We all threw rocks and names,
Wanting equality was their sin.
Did it matter? Their race was who they were.
A few rose voices,
Others’ silences were fists furled.
What does it matter, of what color their skin?
Here comes another battle.
Here it comes again.
Silence is the foe, when words need to be said.
Silence is the killer.
Silence marks the dead.
If one was gay, would he not be a being?
Should you let others mock?
Does silence stop the grieving?
No, the pain is still there, still loud.
The silence is louder.
Silence is all around.
The names, the hate, all can be repressed.
Silence is the fermata.
Silence has the stress.
Silence is the foe, when words need to be said.
Silence is the killer.
Silence marks the dead.
What is the solution, to this lack of sound?
Simple.
Make it loud.
A word of hope, ringing upon new ears.
A word of sympathy,
Erasing all the fear.
A smile, a hug, a song, a dream,
All to be had,
All to be seen.
Shout against repression, against hate.
For we are all equal,
All the same final fate.
Silence is the foe, when words need to be said.
Silence is the killer.
Silence marks the dead.
Stand together, as one. Make the stand.
Stop silence, create music,
Ring it through the land.
With your words create harmony, create rhyme.
Create thirds and fifths,
Stronger than the flow of time.
Why must we stand alone? Aren’t we all brothers?
Did our ancestors fight?
Protecting our dear mother?
Hand in hand we’ll rise, voices speak as one.
Cruelness and evil gone,
Silence on the run.
Silence is the foe, when words need to be said.
Silence is the killer.
Silence marks the dead.
If we do not help each other, then who will assist?
Together we will rise,
Or fall together into the abyss.
Gay or straight, or be it black or white,
Whether you believe in god,
We’re all human, right?
We all feel, we all hear and see.
We can all make words,
We all breathe.
Silence is the foe, when words need to be said.
Silence is the killer.
Silence marks the dead.
So why must we be made different, called by our opinions or race?
Why must we be judged,
Simply by our face?
No more, I shout. No more the hate.
No more discrimination.
This is our fate.
No more injustice, social and the silence.
No more acts of anger.
No more senseless violence.
Let brothers protect brothers, let friends be friends,
For we are only human.
The same mortal end.
Let sisters love their sisters, let strangers be strangers no more.
For we are only human.
Our heart is our core.
Silence is the foe, when words need to be said.
Silence is the killer.
Silence marks the dead.
I will stand alone, if that is what it takes.
I will raise my voice,
Singing with quick haste.
I will be the difference, the smile to the weak.
I will help protect,
Helping shield the meek.
I will celebrate the differences, that make you and me.
I will turn the lock,
My voice will be the key.
Soon my friends will join, creating a choir of light,
Singing against the hate,
Harmonies strike the night.
Silence will not be my tool, silence is not my friend.
I will make my voice count.
I will make this hate end.
Silence is the foe, when words need to be said.
Silence is the killer.
Silence marks the dead.
Dec 9, 2012
Dec 9, 2012 at 8:54 PM UTC
The cusp of the moment
Felt like a precipice;
Like pressure rising before
That first flash of lightning
That bleeds into the next.
The air was charged
Before those words were said;
The crackle as tangible as static
Raising hairs along my arms.
They felt like hands
Spreading across the furled wing-bones of
My shoulders
It was that gasp before the shove,
The realization dawning,
The knowledge of the fissure below
Where the sun found no purchase.
The words left her lips
And I fell
Unhindered to a place
Where you're not breathing.
Mar 22, 2016
Mar 22, 2016 at 1:08 PM UTC
Writing out my every thought
For thousands of you I have bought
Your ink spilt on paper, forms such beautiful words
we could write amazing music, much like songbirds
You portray all my emotions
Which could fill many many oceans
Your ink, it comes in a rainbow of colors
When reading your work my heart flutters
You are, always there when I fall
Help me, for we could build mountains quite tall
Free like a butterfly
You leave a trail for everyone nearby
Beauty in your gracious flight
You are the victor in every fight
Building a skyscraper
As your point dances across paper
Its as if you know everything
You make me wanna sing
You show a world of pure imagination
Proving the beauty of creation
Drawing the blood from my hand
To write stories of wonderland
You are like a bridge of communication
You do this with much confrontation
Spewing life's essence with every swift movement
But staying in the limelight
You shout so loud, without even speaking
brain matter leaking
Leaving every brow furled because
You control this whole **** world
Jan 21, 2018
Jan 21, 2018 at 9:07 AM UTC
Within this restless, hurried, modern world
We took our hearts’ full pleasure—You and I,
And now the white sails of our ship are furled,
And spent the lading of our argosy.
Wherefore my cheeks before their time are wan,
For very weeping is my gladness fled,
Sorrow has paled my young mouth’s vermilion,
And Ruin draws the curtains of my bed.
But all this crowded life has been to thee
No more than lyre, or lute, or subtle spell
Of viols, or the music of the sea
That sleeps, a mimic echo, in the shell.
4.3k
Remembering the Strait of Belle Isle or
some northerly harbor of Labrador,
before he became a schoolteacher
a great-uncle painted a big picture.
Receding for miles on either side
into a flushed, still sky
are overhanging pale blue cliffs
hundreds of feet high,
their bases fretted by little arches,
the entrances to caves
running in along the level of a bay
masked by perfect waves.
On the middle of that quiet floor
sits a fleet of small black ships,
square-rigged, sails furled, motionless,
their spars like burnt match-sticks.
And high above them, over the tall cliffs'
semi-translucent ranks,
are scribbled hundreds of fine black birds
hanging in n's in banks.
One can hear their crying, crying,
the only sound there is
except for occasional sizhine
as a large aquatic animal breathes.
In the pink light
the small red sun goes rolling, rolling,
round and round and round at the same height
in perpetual sunset, comprehensive, consoling,
while the ships consider it.
Apparently they have reached their destination.
It would be hard to say what brought them there,
commerce or contemplation.
3.7k
Many months had whispered by
Unbeknownst to me
The sheaths of ice retreated slow,
And buds furled from the trees.
I had not stopped to grasp and hold
The notion laying stagnant
Within my chest, there thawing too
A sunken, fading, fragment
This withered seed, this dying shoot
Lay wilting in the dark
Until my sightless, bourbon eyes
Saw what was in my heart.
May 18, 2015
May 18, 2015 at 2:15 PM UTC
After decades and decades of distance
I've found you
The sluggish, torturous moments of the laps
have finally passed.
Time has bruised me, pounded me, bled me
to the core.
Hours spent as a pack of wolves,
howling for a soul.
I've hunted, starving in my travels.
Searching for you.
Me, a pack of hunting dogs not just stalking
quietly through still woods....
but bolting with snarling furled lips....
exposing razor sharp fangs to sink deep within
the throat of the love I long for.
Hold tight until the struggling gazelle gasps its last.
The hunt is over,
the heart full from the gorging.
Purring in each others company.
While resting tranquilly on the aromatic clover.
Riffles unable to focus, our stripes blending,
as our bodies merge.
The great cats we are, no predator to fear.
We slumber and bask in our regal glory.
Our cat eyes fixed on each other!
© Crystal Erickson 12/14/07
Dec 24, 2014
Dec 24, 2014 at 3:49 PM UTC
Come to my arms --- is it eve? is it morn?
Is Apollo awake? Is Diana reborn?
Are the streams in full song? Do the woods whisper hush
Is it the nightingale? Is it the thrush?
Is it the smile of the autumn, the blush
Of the spring? Is the world full of peace or alarms?
Come to my arms, Laylah, come to my arms!
Come to my arms, though the hurricane blow.
Thunder and summer, or winter and snow,
It is one to us, one, while our spirits are curled
In the crimson caress: we are fond, we are furled
Like lilies away from the war of the world.
Are there spells beyond ours? Are there alien charms?
Come to my arms, Laylah, come to my arms!
Come to my arms! is it life? is it death?
Is not all immortality born of your breath?
Are not heaven and hell but as handmaids of yours
Who are all that enflames, who are all that allures,
Who are all that destroys, who are all that endures?
I am yours, do I care if it heals me or harms?
Come to my arms, Laylah, come to my arms!
2.6k
All that I know
Of a certain star,
Is, it can throw
(Like the angled spar)
Now a dart of red,
Now a dart of blue,
Till my friends have said
They would fain see, too,
My star that dartles the red and the blue!
Then it stops like a bird,—like a flower, hangs furled,
They must solace themselves with the Saturn above it.
What matter to me if their star is a world?
Mine has opened its soul to me; therefore I love it.
2.6k
There is a sailboat out at sea
empty and lifeless
as lonesome as can be
You can blow hard, but you'll fail
as you make no progress here
pressing against this furled sail
Waves of the waters, Wind, I surmise
you're waiting and hoping
to watch it capsize
Sep 2, 2011
Sep 2, 2011 at 11:00 PM UTC
Then was my neophyte,
Child in white blood bent on its knees
Under the bell of rocks,
Ducked in the twelve, disciple seas
The winder of the water-clocks
Calls a green day and night.
My sea hermaphrodite,
Snail of man in His ship of fires
That burn the bitten decks,
Knew all His horrible desires
The climber of the water ***
Calls the green rock of light.
Who in these labyrinths,
This tidethread and the lane of scales,
Twine in a moon-blown shell,
Escapes to the flat cities' sails
Furled on the fishes' house and hell,
Nor falls to His green myths?
Stretch the salt photographs,
The landscape grief, love in His oils
Mirror from man to whale
That the green child see like a grail
Through veil and fin and fire and coil
Time on the canvas paths.
He films my vanity.
Shot in the wind, by tilted arcs,
Over the water come
Children from homes and children's parks
Who speak on a finger and thumb,
And the masked, headless boy.
His reels and mystery
The winder of the clockwise scene
Wound like a ball of lakes
Then threw on that tide-hoisted screen
Love's image till my heartbone breaks
By a dramatic sea.
Who kills my history?
The year-hedged row is lame with flint,
Blunt scythe and water blade.
'Who could snap off the shapeless print
From your to-morrow-treading shade
With oracle for eye?'
Time kills me terribly.
'Time shall not ****** you,' He said,
'Nor the green nought be hurt;
Who could hack out your unsucked heart,
O green and unborn and undead?'
I saw time ****** me.
2.5k
I say my grace behind gritted teeth and furled brow.
The anger in me; pent-up somehow.
To vow my soul since child's belief.
Forced upon me like broccoli and beets.
Taught to believe and not to suspect; that what they tell me are lies about death.
Jul 3, 2013
Jul 3, 2013 at 6:00 PM UTC
And I hope she’ll be a fool, that’s the best thing a girl can be, is a beautiful little fool.
To see no fault and see no cause, a demeanor that elicits the ceasing of qualms
She will drink mint tea while sitting with glee on top of a cloud above a raging storm
Her focus is precise and what she sees will be calm
I wish for my daughter to be one
She will live in a bubble, plated with the toughest material and doubled, and coated with rose-colored glass.
It will be her veil, disguising injustices too well, but her aura will always be electric
Her tears will be daisies growing amongst the lilies near a pond where there’s coy and fairies casting spells.
She will sleep and dream neutral, as the sandman began his sutures, to maintain her outlook that life is swell.
I wish for my daughter to be one
With her sway and her gallop and her nod and her twirl, she will please the sensibilities of the world.
I pray to the heavens, her angels and gods, that there will not be a crack in her armor.
For if she is to see how the world truly be, then her face will forever be furled
She is my joy and my love, a pearl necklace with a hug, a jewel that can never be matched
And I hope she’ll be a fool, that’s the best thing a girl can be. Is a
Beautiful
Little
Fool
Jul 23, 2016
Jul 23, 2016 at 11:18 PM UTC
It is time to give that-of-myself which I could not at first:
To offer you now at last my least and my worst:
Minor, absurd preserves,
The shell's end-curves,
A document kept at the back of a drawer,
A tin hidden under the floor,
Recalcitrant prides and hesitations:
To pile them carefully in a desparate oblation
And say to you "quickly! turn them
Once over and burn them".
Now I (no communist, heaven knows!
Who have kept as my dearest right to close
My tenth door after I've opened nine to the world,
To unfold nine sepals holding one hard-furled)
Shall - or shall try to - offer to you
A communism of two ...
See, entry's yours;
Here, the last door!
2.3k
War broke: and now the Winter of the world
With perishing great darkness closes in.
The foul tornado, centred at Berlin,
Is over all the width of Europe whirled,
Rending the sails of progress. Rent or furled
Are all Art's ensigns. Verse wails. Now begin
Famines of thought and feeling. Love's wine's thin.
The grain of human Autumn rots, down-hurled.
For after Spring had bloomed in early Greece,
And Summer blazed her glory out with Rome,
An Autumn softly fell, a harvest home,
A slow grand age, and rich with all increase.
But now, for us, wild Winter, and the need
Of sowings for new Spring, and blood for seed.
2.1k
What are we doing here?
Strangers uttered to each other CHEERS
We live in two different world
But for unknown reason we were being furled
To a place beyond the outer space
For me a miracle that can't be untraced
Though reason was so unclear
All I know I'm so happy I met you here
Occasion that may take a day or two
Time that set for me and you
A dream that certainly will past
But for me.... truly a moment that will last....
Aug 19, 2015
Aug 19, 2015 at 11:21 PM UTC
*Don't bother me, don't follow me
There's no one else I yearn to see
So fold away your memories
To cede beneath that Hemlock tree*
What will I do? Where will I go?
Unshod against the burning road?
These memories I mourn and hold
Crease in my hands where they enfold.
*Don't bother me, don't follow me
Or brandish me things I cannot see
My eyes plunge past the memories
Beneath that bygone Hemlock tree.*
What will you do? Where will you go?
I was your heart, you were my soul
Did you let go and drift below
The Lethe River’s undertow?
*Don't bother me, don't follow me
I hold my head above the sea
These memories furled around your sleeve
I've stashed beneath the hemlock tree.*
What do we do? Where do we go?
There are separate paths, or so I'm told
You'll tour one, and if I'm bold
I'll peer once more down your own road.
*Don't bother me, don't follow me
But yes, perchance... I'll dream of thee.
I'll stargaze there, and make believe
Of truth beneath that Hemlock tree.*
Mar 8, 2015
Mar 8, 2015 at 9:54 PM UTC
Human, human, I know you are that smart
Decide what’s best, or when to fall apart
Like when to stop, or when to make a start
Why you’ve to stay, or why you’ve to depart
But since you are too curious of this world
Instead to stand you’ve stayed like firmly furled
You care not if your path now turns like curled
You trace them like a shadow that is whorled
Human, human, are you now feeling dry?
Are you bored of smiling, want to cry?
Do you feel now the need to sound like sly?
A disaster, you crave now, want to try?
Oh, here it is, the recipe you want-
A cup of fear will really help to daunt
A spoonful of insult or a fresh taunt
At night surely Achilles ‘ heel will haunt
Do not forget to mix a pinch of hate
More wrong thoughts for a glass you need to sate
Add jealousy and envy to your weight
Eat with greed on disaster’s perfect plate!
Feb 25, 2015
Feb 25, 2015 at 8:33 AM UTC
Flag of my fathers
When will the winds of equality
lift you from your languid prison?
When will your 12,000,000
illegals be given shelter
beneath your furled stars?
Flag of my fathers
When will you be worthy
of your returning veterans?
I'm tired of them washing
my windows for spare change
beneath the overpass
Flag of my fathers
When will your gays and lesbians
be more than fodder for bible
thumping patriots?
I was a bible thumping patriot
once but I never hated the gays
I'm tired and broke Flag of my fathers
The bank wants my house
and the Chinaman wants my job
He's welcome to it if he can get
the Indian to give it up
The doctor wants my money
but it's all been squandered
on promises and broken dreams
I call for equality Flag of my fathers
and they call me a communist
I'm not a communist but if communists
believe in equality, was Jefferson
a communist?
Flag of my fathers
They tell me to leave if I don't like
the way things are but where will I go?
Mexico's crowded and Canada's cold
The government tells me 'get a job'
but the corporation says 'get an education'
The University hands me a bill
and when I can't pay
they tell me 'get a job'
It's all ****** up Flag of my fathers
It doesn't make any sense
I've got a headache, leave me
alone
I'm so tired
Watching shadows crawl across
the wall is dull even for a slow
witted fool like me
Flag of my fathers
Why are we at war?
Why are we closing our museums
and demolishing our libraries?
Why are we feeding our military
and starving our vets?
It's too much to take
Flag of my fathers
It's too **** much to take...
Apr 7, 2013
Apr 7, 2013 at 10:56 AM UTC
Flag of my fathers
When will the winds of equality
lift you from your languid prison?
When will your 12,000,000
immigrants get a fair shake
beneath your furled stars?
Flag of my fathers
When will you be worthy
of your returning veterans?
I'm tired of them washing
my windows for spare change
beneath the overpass
Flag of my fathers
When will your gays and lesbians
be more than fodder for bible
thumping patriots?
I was a bible thumping patriot
once but I never hated the gays
I'm tired and broke Flag of my fathers
The bank wants my house
and the Chinaman wants my job
He's welcome to it if he can get
the Indian to give it up
The doctor wants my money
but it's all been squandered
on promises and broken dreams
I call for equality Flag of my fathers
and they call me a communist
I'm not a communist but if communists
believe in equality, was Jefferson
a communist?
Flag of my fathers
They tell me to leave if I don't like
the way things are but where will I go?
Mexico's crowded and Canada's cold
The righties tell me 'get a job'
but the jobies say 'get an education'
The Universities hand me a bill
and when I can't pay
they tell me 'get a job'
It's all ****** up Flag of my fathers
and doesn't make any sense
I've got a headache, leave me
alone
I'm so tired
Watching shadows crawl across
the walls is dull even for a slow
witted fool like me
Flag of my fathers
Why are we at war?
Why are we closing our museums
and demolishing our libraries?
Why are we feeding our military
and starving our vets?
It's too much to take
Flag of my fathers
It's too **** much to take...
Jan 23, 2013
Jan 23, 2013 at 10:53 AM UTC
What wealth for us humans to fare
The gift of power, the will to dare
Wit so sharp and insights rare
Hearts to share and souls to care
The prime motif in God’s divine design
In us, the body and soul mysteriously intertwine
We are bestowed with intelligence to discern
And light and warmth like candles to burn
In kingly glory we stand ***** n’ tall
Over all animals that beneath us crawl
Blessed generously with copious gifts and skills
And discretion to ward off all sinister ills
Though here on Earth, uncrowned we be
We are the royal princes of the life to be
And legal heirs to celestial glee
After our perilous voyage across the sea
We are flung unasked into this world
And the gift of life to us is generously furled
Never let the vessel of life go adrift
Steer clear of the shoals n'storms and guard this gift!
Oct 3, 2016
Oct 3, 2016 at 5:34 AM UTC